Source control view panel

[aarroisi]

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• Completed

Describe the feature

I would like to request a Source Control View, like the one in VSCode where I can see all the changes and staged changes I made in the project. This is very useful for me to review my work before submitting a PR. Maybe you can add a button to open a tab consisting of this information at the bottom left of the screen, right next to the button to open Project Diagnostic. That would be very helpful.

If applicable, add mockups / screenshots to help present your vision of the feature

[Otterpocket]

Hi, I came from Vscode and heavily relied on the above feature. Since using zed I switched to github desktop and honestly, I feel like my workflow/productivity has improved. Sure the inline diff is essential and some kind of inline blame would be nice.
But is version control really the responsibility of the editor? My personal opinion is that I would rather see energy put into things that are clearly the responsibility of the editor.

[JosephTLyons]

Yes! It makes sense we would build out a new panel (a git panel) that lives in one of the docks. We definitely want to support git operations! :)

[luwes]

Please have a look at https://github.com/timbrel/GitSavvy for inspiration if this feature gets implemented.
It's the reason I'm still using Sublime Text

[coolemur]

Hi, I came from Vscode and heavily relied on the above feature. Since using zed I switched to github desktop and honestly, I feel like my workflow/productivity has improved. Sure the inline diff is essential and some kind of inline blame would be nice. But is version control really the responsibility of the editor? My personal opinion is that I would rather see energy put into things that are clearly the responsibility of the editor.

Git changes view / diff / cancel, etc operations are definitely something that would prevent me from using Zed.

VScode for example, has decent way to compare / merge changes. Not everything works well there tho, but it greatly improves productivity.
(I'm using both Git Desktop + Built in code editor git features just because VSCode Git features isn't enough)

I think this could be selling point of Zed, if Git features would work better than in VSCode, then use of Github Desktop wouldn't be necessary.

[vitalics]

As an extended feature - it would be nice to have a git graph - This is vscode extension but a real game changer and I moved from others git UI's. Simple, intuitive, and powerful.

Graph tree:

Context menu:

Commit changes:

[shinebayar-g]

It looks like Zed already has a partial support for Git.

In the editor window, I see a yellow vertical bar for changed lines. In VSCode, this bar is clickable and I could undo or see the exact changes. But in Zed it's non functional.

In the file explorer window, untracked git files appear in green, modified files appear in yellow.

This is my №1 request from Zed editor. Currently using VSCode's Source Control view for reviewing changes.

[jasongitmail]

+ "Stage selected" and "Unstaged selected" commands

[jyavorska]

Curious what others are using in the meantime to have a nice commit review/diff workflow? This is really the one thing preventing me from using Zed as my primary editor, the ability to review diffs in my change, switch branches, make commits, push, etc. is so useful when editing code that it's hard to live without it. Are you just doing everything in the terminal for now?

[jasongitmail]

Curious what others are using in the meantime to have a nice commit review/diff workflow?

I'm keeping the project open in Cursor/VSCode too showing the Source Control view. zed + old IDE. 😆

[coolemur]

Curious what others are using in the meantime to have a nice commit review/diff workflow?

I'm keeping the project open in Cursor/VSCode too showing the Source Control view. zed + old IDE. 😆

Sounds like working on VSCode with extra steps

[Otterpocket]

Curious what others are using in the meantime to have a nice commit review/diff workflow? This is really the one thing preventing me from using Zed as my primary editor, the ability to review diffs in my change, switch branches, make commits, push, etc. is so useful when editing code that it's hard to live without it. Are you just doing everything in the terminal for now?

Github desktop, highly recommend giving it a go

[jasongitmail]

Showing an AI suggested commit message based on contents of the git stage, would be a nice time saver too.

[benswift]

I'm not sure how many Emacs -> Zed converts there are out there, but if Zed had something like Magit I'd jettison my 20 years of dotfiles and muscle memory (well, pinky RSI) in a hot second.

[emersonjds]

@jyavorska yeap, only integrated terminal :S

[etiennelacoursiere]

Never liked the git panel in vscode and was running lazygit in the vscode terminal for a better experience. Doing the same in zed.

[jacobtt21]

I personally like the git panel, especially the diff view in VSCode. I think adding it to Zed will make it all the more better, just my personal opinion though.

[Chimpaya]

This is the only thing preventing me from leaving VSCode. The lack of Git Panel is a deal breaker. Would love to have it.

[Princesseuh]

Everytime someone posts a comment "when can we expect this", "please add this!" etc, the Zed team delays it by a month.

[bersace]

lazygit is broken when signing GPG, I guess that's based on using libgit rather than gpg commands like magit does. lazygit lacks behing magit.

[coolemur]

lazygit is broken when signing GPG, I guess that's based on using libgit rather than gpg commands like magit does. lazygit lacks behing magit.

This is not about alternatives tho, but about separate panel for source control (integrated solution)

For example, using vscode you can open git panel, where you can select any file from a treeview there and see side-by-side diffs for that file where you can modify those changes, copy changes left-right.

Furthermore, with gitlense plugin you can see history of PRs, this is very useful for restoring parts of changes from history or finding out in which PR things were broken.

Of course we can use third party tools for that, there are plenty. But that is not convenient.
I usually open vscode just to check PR history. 🤷‍♂️ If third party tools are ok, then VSCode is also OK for this.

[Angelk90]

@coolemur : I usually open vscode just to check PR history, what do you use some library or via access to github with vscode?

[coolemur]

@coolemur : I usually open vscode just to check PR history, what do you use some library or via access to github with vscode?

Access to github with vscode using VSCode Gitlens plugin. Feature called "Gitlens: File History" (youtube has some vids about this for sure)

So for example, if I want previous version of one file, I just click on gitlense and pick previous commit of that file to see highlighted changes. Very helpful when debugging previous commits

[Angelk90]

@coolemur : but Gitlens is not paid I think?

[coolemur]

@coolemur : but Gitlens is not paid I think?

It has free plan + other plans. Never used paid one

[Angelk90]

@coolemur : I see this at the moment, do you too?

[coolemur]

@coolemur : I see this at the moment, do you too?

I just moved "File history" tab to separate icon (you can just drag it to your sidebar :D )

Open any file that has commit history. Then open this File history tab

[Angelk90]

@coolemur : However in my opinion vscode and zed should have all this by default.

For this reason, in my opinion, the best, even if it is paid, is Webstorm which offers a set of exceptional features.

[coolemur]

@coolemur : However in my opinion vscode and zed should have all this by default.

For this reason, in my opinion, the best, even if it is paid, is Webstorm which offers a set of exceptional features.

Again, can we just stop suggesting alternatives ? :D

How new user of Zed will know which one to pick? By reading github issues comments and finding this exact comment recommending to use Webstorm?

[Angelk90]

@coolemur : In fact, I hope that zed will implement this functionality soon.

[bersace]

@coolemur I was just stressing how much this feature is missing. I'm wondering how does zed developers do their git plumbing. CLI ?

Another workaround: start magit in a task, like lazygit:

// tasks.json
  {
    "label": "magit",
    "command": "emacs -nw --eval '(magit-status)'"
  }

Then bind <space> g g:

      "space g g": [
        "task::Spawn",
        {
          "task_name": "magit"
        }
      ],

I've streamlined Doom Emacs init.el for this use case.

[erzz]

Yeah to be honest - rather than worrying about a specific git client implementation (Lazy, magit, etc) and still having a bunch of users that want something else...

better to work on how we can plugin any tool to different kinds of UI components. Sidebar, tab, terminal etc are already implemented. The only thing missing for me is a floating window and split terminals! Both have their use in different workflows and I am totally happy with the tasks implementation.... just having it under a terminal tab that I need to navigate to every time is the pain point.

Let me target a split term or a float and I am totally happy - for my-git-client-of-choice-right-now but also other CLI tools too

[Angelk90]

I think that at the moment we need someone to start doing something and then little by little things will settle down.
But at the moment we need someone to at least implement the open git panel function, even if it doesn't show anything.

[langri-sha]

I think the Zed team already knows how to build the perfect git integration because they did it before with Atom!

I hope you take an inspiration from the outstanding work that was previously done and make an amazing integration!

I tend to do a lot of refactoring tasks on large codebases, and in Atom it was incredibly straightforward to focus on the Git panel and stage/unstage files/hunks using just the keyboard alone, and I can't state enough how much a productivity boost that was.

This feature is one of the reasons why I want to switch back to Zed from VS Code entirely.

[hallvardnmbu]

Something like JetBrain's solution would be amazing.

[matklad]

+1 for following text-centric magit here, rather than gui-heavy VS Code/IJ. I've recorded a 2 min demo showing some of the killer feature of this style of interface:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTAYEmbPsTM

[pasqui23]

All of magit features shown in @matklad 's video are present in vscode too

[matklad]

To clarify, it is VS Code in the video. The point is that with text-centric UI you get all those features you get with GUI UI, but you also get to use all familiar text manipulation commands.

[aayushchugh]

It would be great if git panel have support for conventional commit messages too

[Gallevy]

A lot of opinions are but a view option to allow only visualizing git while still working with the terminal to allow for a cleaner ui would be nice as well 🙏🏼

[solidcode79]

I wonder why something like this is not already on the top enhancements list. It's the only reason I've haven't uninstalled VSCode yet.

[mrnugget]

We're very aware that this is highly-requested. It's #6 on our list of top-ranking issues: #5393

I'm going to lock the issue for now, since by now 45+ people get notified on every message.